Chris Van Allsburg

Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic.

In the same way that a mundane object can have a personality somehow, I try to suggest that a mundane setting can have some menace behind it.

It's not in the interest of the artist to think of his market.

As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much.

What kids are exposed to on television is more frightening and horrifying than what they see in my books.

Brainstorming, for me, takes place in my bed at night between the time I turn out my lights and I finally fall asleep. It is not a very violent storm, but what's happening is I am just thinking about different ideas and maybe things I've seen that day that I think might make a good story.

I don't know if what kids really want is a hamster. What they want is a dog. So the hamster ends up being a substitute: 'Well, would you accept this?'

There was a great deal of peer recognition to be gained in elementary school by being able to draw well. One girl could draw horses so well, she was looked upon as a kind of sorceress.

I don't like to get scared - it's not one of the emotions I enjoy. So I have to assume that if there are scary things in my books, they aren't very scary.

I think it's difficult to forget things that are unresolved.

The Polar Express' began with the idea of a train standing alone in the woods. I asked myself, 'What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?'

I've heard stories about authors filled with this kind of Lotto-winner hubris. I'm a Dutch boy from the Midwest. We don't have hubris.